Repentence!

My Sunday school lesson was on repentance; I teach the 16-I'm off to college crowd. we often here to "repent often" now that's all well a good if your "bad" often but I am under the impression that we shouldn't repent until we won't do that "bad" thing again.

Ezra Taft Benson said in 1988 "Repentance means more than simply a reformation of behavior. many men and women in the world demonstrate great will-power and self-discipline in overcoming great habits and the weaknesses of the flesh. Yet at the same time they give no thought to the Master, sometimes even openly rejecting Him. Such changes of behavior, even if in a positive direction, do not constitute true repentance....True repentance is based on and flows form faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other way. True repentance involves a change of heart and not just a change of behavior"

I think if you repent with out really committing to it and making the covenant with our Heavenly Father than you're taking the fact the Christ died for granted. I feel when we do that we hurt Christ even more. He died so we could be forgiven and when we take a nonchalant attitude about it seems like we don't care. Now this is my opinion; but I don't think we should ask for forgiveness if it's not something we can really stop doing or saying or whatever it is.

The lesson was on Samuel the Lamanite beseeching the Nephites to come back to the Lord. I think of Mel Gibson's movie Apocolypto while reading this. During this time the Nephites had their eyes to the world and they're was a great curse on the land, same as the movie. I was very impressed with this movie it brought the Book of Mormon to life. If you haven't seen it and you can get past the "National Geographic" type nudity and the beheadings than watch it. The Lamanites (and at this point in the Book of Mormon the Nephites) will come alive.

I also can't help but think where we are at in the world. Are our eyes on the Lord or the world? 2 questions in my lesson are In what ways so people give more time and attention to worldly concerns than to spiritual concerns? How can we assess whether we are giving enough attention to our spiritual welfare?

Talents

I just got home from enrichment meeting and we had a talent show. I think every one of us needs to look at our own lives and see what we can do. Just because some of us do not have "right brain" talents does not me we don't have a talent. And even the prophets say that we need to relish in our talents and not "diss" them. I have a real problem when people act all "humble"ish and not give themselves the credit they deserve! I mean Heavenly Father created us in his own image and Jesus died for us. We are all wonderful and special; don't take what you can do better or easier than someone else as less than a blessings and a talent. I think that someone who can work with numbers is a phenomenal talent. So please let us all think of ourselves as wonderful sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father!